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While much attention has been focused on renewed U.S. interest in potentially deploying space-based interceptors, another concept that emerged from President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1980s is also being reexamined: putting lasers or neutral particle beams in space to shoot down enemy missiles.

The United States currently faces no legal obstacles to deploying conventional space-based interceptors, also known as SBIs. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty banned it, but President George W. Bush withdrew from the agreement in 2002.

Twenty-five years after the demise of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the Pentagon is once again taking a close look at the possibility of basing missile interceptors in space. Such a project would be technologically feasible, but would strain military budgets and potentially ignite an arms race, analysts say.

The Army realigned “just north” of $30 billion in its five-year spending plan to fund its top modernization priorities, a number that adds up to about $6 billion over its original goal, the service’s under secretary said Feb. 26.

Recent discussions indicate that Russia is still unwilling to give in to the Trump administration's demands to comply with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, potentially opening the door to U.S. development of new offensive missiles, according to a top State Department official.